Donald Trump Talks To Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen: Will He Cause A Crisis With China?

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Donald Trump Talks To Taiwan's Tsai Ing-wen: Will He Cause A Crisis With China?
By Doug Bandow
RE: http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougband.../#6e3d62622d2a

No one doubted that the world changed a month ago when Donald Trump was elected U.S. president. The result was close, but the American people decisively chose the undiplomatic businessman to lead the U.S. government and “free world.”

Americans are still trying to figure out what kind of president he will be. So are foreign peoples and governments. Although he has acted with some circumspection in his Cabinet choices so far, his phone call to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen suggests either carelessness or recklessness. Neither is a good approach in dealing with an issue of great importance to U.S.-Chinese relations.

America’s relationship with China is long and tortured. Washington joined European powers in carving up largely helpless Imperial China in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. The U.S. backed Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government against Japanese invaders and domestic insurgents, but was unable to prevent Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party from taking power in 1949. Washington then supported the nationalist remnant under Chiang after it fled to the island of Taiwan, claiming to be the entire country’s legitimate government.

While much of the world recognized the mainland's People’s Republic of China, America only talked to the Republic of China on Taiwan. In the midst of the Cold War, however, Richard Nixon made a pilgrimage to Beijing to forge an anti-Soviet understanding. President Jimmy Carter completed the process in 1979, formally shifting diplomatic recognition to the PRC. Beijing also took over China’s Security Council seat at the United Nations.

However, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which institutionalized unofficial relations with Taipei. While the U.S. government formally acknowledges that there is only one China and top U.S. officials avoid contact with Taiwanese leaders, both Taiwan and America maintain unofficial diplomats in the other's capital. It might look like a silly game to outsiders, but such artificial yet important processes are what diplomacy is all about.

President-elect Trump ignored this finely crafted compromise in making his call to Tsai. It was as if British Prime Minister Viscount Palmerston dropped a pleasant note to Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis after the latter’s inauguration. USA President Abraham Lincoln would not have been pleased.

The PRC is quick to take offense at even more modest slights, such as arms sales to Taipei visits by Taiwanese officials to America. In 2001 President George W. Bush explicitly pledged to defend the island nation, but backtracked under pressure. Presidential contact between the U.S. and Taiwan is a first in nearly four decades.

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CFR Bargrounders
RE: http://www.cfr.org/china/china-taiwan-relations/p9223

Introduction

Taiwan, home to twenty-three million people, is an island off the southern coast of China that has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. The People's Republic of China (PRC) views the island as a province, while in Taiwan—a territory with its own democratically elected government—leading political voices have differing views on the island's status and relations with the mainland. Some observe the principle that there is "One China" comprising the island and the mainland, but in their eyes this is the Republic of China (ROC) based in Taipei; others advocate for a de jure independent Taiwan. China and Taiwan maintain a fragile relationship, which has improved during the past seven years but is periodically tested.

'One China' Principle

Beijing and Taipei sharply disagree on the island's status. The PRC asserts that there is only "One China" and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it. Beijing says Taiwan is bound by an understanding reached in 1992 between representatives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) political party then ruling Taiwan. Referred to as the 1992 Consensus, it states that there is only one China, but with differing interpretations, allowing both Beijing and Taipei to agree that Taiwan belongs to China, while the two still disagree on which is China's legitimate governing body. The tacit agreement underlying the 1992 Consensus is that Taiwan will not seek independence. Taiwan's KMT accepts the consensus as a starting point for future negotiations with the CCP. However, strong Taiwanese political forces, including some leading voices of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), have rejected the very existence of the consensus, leaving open the option of a future independent Taiwan. The island's president, Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the DPP, is striving for a formula that will not shatter the current stability in cross-strait relations.

In 1979, the United States established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing by concluding a joint communiqué stating that "the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China." At that time, U.S. President Jimmy Carter terminated diplomatic relations with the ROC government in Taiwan. But soon after, the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) affirming important unofficial ties with the island. The new legislation replaced the previous bilateral defense treaty with a qualified commitment to the island's security and providing for the supply of necessary "defense articles and services."

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, totaling more than $46 billion (PDF) since 1990, have led to U.S.-China friction and an upsurge in bellicose rhetoric across the strait.

"Taiwan has a messy history of invasion, occupation, colonization, refuge, and intermarriage."—Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney

Rise of an Island

Ethnic Han Chinese settlers, primarily merchants, began to arrive in Taiwan in the seventeenth century. The island, now inhabited by a Han Chinese majority, many of whom identify as distinctly Taiwanese, is also home to indigenous peoples who account for around 2 percent of the population. "Taiwan has a messy history of invasion, occupation, colonization, refuge, and intermarriage," writes University of Sydney Professor Salvatore Babones. Annexed by the Qing dynasty in the late 1600s, Taiwan was later ceded to Japan in 1895 by imperial China in accordance with a treaty that concluded the Sino-Japanese War. Japan governed it as a colony until 1945, when Japanese forces on the island were required to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek's ROC military forces.

Timeline: U.S. Relations with China

The ROC, which had governed China for decades, fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the Communists in 1949. But Chiang insisted his government continued to represent all Chinese people both on the island and the mainland. Washington and most Western powers affirmed the KMT's stance by long refusing to recognize the Communist government in Beijing, a position most countries later reversed.

Washington's position began to shift under the Nixon administration. Back-channel diplomacy ultimately resulted in Washington's formal recognition of the PRC in 1979. The ROC lost its seat representing China at the United Nations in 1971 to Beijing.

The KMT governed the island from 1949 to 1987 under martial law. Political dissent was harshly repressed and Taiwanese who had long inhabited the island before 1945 faced discrimination. Taiwan held its first free legislative elections in 1992 and presidential elections in 1996. The KMT and coalition partners have historically seen Taiwan as a part of "One China" and do not support the island's independence. After 2000, the KMT often found itself in opposition to parties representing Taiwanese who had been on the island before 1949 and their descendants. Although riven with its own factionalism, the KMT retains deep ties to the island's business leaders and consistently calls for closer ties with Beijing. The party lost its majority in Taiwan's legislative body for the first time in the 2016 elections.

The KMT's chief rival, the DPP, was founded in 1986 and became legal in 1989 after a ban on opposition parties was dropped. The DPP has traditionally called for a de jure independent Taiwan as a separate political entity from China, and has become an outlet for the expression of Taiwanese identity. Chen Shui-bian was the first non-KMT politician to serve as president (2000–2008) and pushed for Taiwanese sovereignty. Shortly after his term, Chen was convicted and imprisoned on charges of embezzlement and accepting bribes (he is now on medical parole).

Beijing closely observes the island's elections. Though it is unclear how the PRC's leadership will manage relations with a DPP-led government after the 2016 elections, Beijing has typically favored a steady deepening of ties with Taiwan, forging economic linkages that could become too costly for the island to sever, thus nudging it closer to unification with the mainland. However, since the PRC's own leadership transition in 2012, President Xi Jinping has embraced a tougher, nationalistic stance toward all of the special regions it claims, including Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan alike.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese leaders consider the reestablishment of formal diplomatic relations with major powers and international organizations essential if Taiwan is to survive separately from the Communist mainland, but only twenty-two countries maintain diplomatic ties with the island.

Military Situation

China has deployed missiles along the Taiwan Strait and continues to modernize the bulk of its military capabilities. "Preparing for potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait remains the focus and primary driver of China's military investment," according to a 2015 U.S. Defense Department report (PDF). Although Beijing continues to seek progress with Taiwan through the discussion of economic issues and high-level people-to-people exchanges, it has refused to renounce the use of force to resolve the dispute over the island's status. The PRC's introduction of the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, intended to strengthen Beijing's approach to "peaceful national reunification," also included language stating that in the event secessionist forces sought independence, Beijing would "employ non-peaceful means" to protect its national sovereignty.

In response, Taiwan continues to purchase weapons, primarily from the United States. In December 2015, the United States announced a $1.83 billion arms sale to Taiwan—the first in four years. Between 1979 and 2014, Taiwan ranked as the ninth largest recipient of arms globally. During the same period, the United States supplied more than three-quarters of Taiwan's imported weapons, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's arms transfers database.

"Preparing for potential conflict in the Taiwan strait remains the focus and primary driver of China's military investment."—U.S. Defense Department
Taiwan's strategic security rests heavily on guarantees offered by the United States under the Taiwan Relations Act. Yet in recent years, security analysts have cited concern over the emerging military imbalance between Beijing and Taipei. "Given the pace of PLA(N) [People's Liberation Army Navy] modernization, the gap in military capability (PDF) between the mainland and Taiwan will continue to widen in China's favor over the coming years," writes the Congressional Research Services' naval affairs specialist Ronald O'Rourke. When former President Ma Ying-jeou's KMT government came to power in 2008, the ROC government committed to boosting military spending to 3 percent of GDP, up from 2.2 percent. However, Taiwan's $10.4 billion defense budget (PDF) in 2014 was a mere 2 percent of GDP and represented 16.2 percent of the total budget, compared to 1994 levels of 3.8 percent and 24.3 percent, respectively.

Economic Rapprochement

Taiwan began investing in China after the reform policies implemented by PRC leader Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s. Despite intermittent friction, the cross-strait economic relationship has blossomed. China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 and, within a month, Taiwan entered as "Chinese Taipei." The island holds member, observer, or other status in more than forty organizations (PDF), such as the Asian Development Bank, APEC, OECD committees, the International Civil Aviation Organiation, and regional fishery organizations. Beijing said in November 2015 that it would welcome Taiwan's membership in the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank "under the appropriate name."

Bilateral trade between China and Taiwan in 2014 reached $198.31 billion, up from $8 billion in 1991 (PDF) . China is Taiwan's largest trading partner, accounting for almost 30 percent of the island's total trade (including the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao), according to Taiwan's bureau of foreign trade. Likewise, Taiwan ranks seventh among China's top ten trading partners. Over ninety-three thousand Taiwanese businesses have invested in the mainland since 1988. Reciprocal mainland investment by Taiwanese firms is on the rise but at a slower rate, totaling $34.5 billion between 2008 and mid-2015. China and Taiwan have also agreed to allow banks, insurers, and other financial service providers to work in both markets. In 2015, the number of direct flights between China and Taiwan hit 890 per week, up from 270 in 2009. More than 9.4 million people traveled across the strait in 2014, and in September 2015 Taiwan upped its daily quota of mainland visitors from four thousand to five thousand.

President Ma (2008–2016) signed more than twenty pacts with the PRC, including the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) (PDF), a cross-strait agreement to lift barriers to trade. Large Taiwanese corporations reap the majority of the benefits from stronger commercial ties with the mainland while average Taiwan residents' concerns over economic security mount. (Taiwan's economy grew only 1 percent in 2015, youth unemployment is almost 13 percent, and property prices are soaring.) Many residents also believe that Ma brought Taiwan closer to Beijing without transparency and against the will of the Taiwanese people. Ma attended a historic meeting with China's Xi in November 2015, the first between cross-strait political leaders, but Ma's approval ratings hovered around record lows in his last two years in power. KMT electoral losses in November 2014 and 2016 have been widely interpreted as dissatisfaction with Ma's China warming policies.

Taiwan has sought to diversify its commercial partnerships to avoid outright dependence on Beijing. In addition to ECFA, Taiwan has signed a handful of other free-trade pacts, including a deal with New Zealand in 2013—Taiwan's first with a developed economy. The government in Taipei has also repeatedly expressed its interest in joining the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multinational free-trade agreement that would account for nearly 40 percent of the world's economy. U.S. trade officials have said they are open to (PDF) Taiwan's participation in the TPP.

Rise of Taiwanese Identity

The subsequent backlash against the ruling KMT in exit polls from recent elections raises further questions about societal views over ties with Beijing. Scholars cite the 228 incident, a Taiwanese uprising against the KMT-led ROC that was violently suppressed in 1947, as the root of a strong ethnic Taiwanese identity that sowed the seeds for democratization.

Generations of democratic practices (PDF) seem to have bound together the Taiwanese people and polity. Though most people on across the Taiwan Strait speak Mandarin as their first language, more than a century of separation has led a growing number of Taiwanese to feel they deserve the right to continue a separate existence. Nearly 60 percent of the island's residents regard themselves as exclusively Taiwanese, according to a 2015 survey conducted by the National Chengchi University. Comparatively, 33.7 percent identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, down from 47.7 percent in 2004, while only 4.1 percent consider themselves only Chinese, a figure that has dwindled since its peak at 26.2 percent in 1994.

"The political awakening of youth in Taiwan was driven as much by practical frustrations as by political ideals," wrote freelance writer Anna Beth Keim in a January 2016 post for the Asia Society. Frustrations over financial insecurity, economic inequality, and a dissatisfaction with Taiwan's political factions have given birth to a groundswell of domestic political activity—largely referred to as Taiwan's "third force."

Meanwhile, China's Xi has emphasized the need for Taiwan's leaders to adhere to the "One China" principle. In March 2015, he said that Taiwan's independence forces "are the biggest hindrance for the peaceful development of the cross-strait ties [and the] biggest threat of the cross-strait stability." China-based experts say that the election of pro-independence leaders in Taiwan may shift Beijing's top security concern from territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas to defending its territorial integrity across the Taiwan Strait.

Though Taiwan's political parties diverge on how best to manage the island's relationship with Beijing, experts caution that both Beijing and Taipei must both take responsibility for avoiding a crisis. "A peaceful cross-strait relationship (PDF) is central to the stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region and therefore is of vital importance to the United States," said Bonnie S. Glaser, senior advisor for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a February 2016 statement before a subcommittee of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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China lodges complaint over Trump-Taiwan call
RE: http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politi...-trump-taiwan/
By: By Stephen Collinson, Nicole Gaouette, Elise Labott and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN
Updated 1:18 PM ET, Sat December 3, 2016

(CNN)China's foreign ministry said Saturday it has lodged a complaint with the United States over a controversial phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Taiwan's President that has overturned decades of diplomatic protocol.

China views Taiwan as a renegade province and, since 1979, the US has acknowledged Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of China, with US-China relations governed by a set of protocols known as the "one China" policy.

This means there are no formal diplomatic relations between the United States and Taiwan -- so Trump's decision to take Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's call could risk a major upset.

"We have noticed relevant reports and lodged solemn representation with the relevant side in the United States," said a statement Saturday from China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

"I must point out that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inseparable part of the Chinese territory ... The 'one China' principle is the political foundation of China-US relations.

Trump risks antagonizing China after call with Taiwan 03:30
"We urge the relevant side in the US to adhere to the 'one China' policy, abide by the pledges in the three joint China-US communiques, and handle issues related to Taiwan carefully and properly to avoid causing unnecessary interference to the overall China-U.S. relationship."
Earlier Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi labeled the phone call "a shenanigan by the Taiwan side" when he was asked about it on the sidelines of a foreign policy seminar.
"The 'one China' policy is the cornerstone of a healthy China-U.S. relationship. I hope this political foundation won't be disrupted or damaged," he said.
Former US envoy: Trump 'winging it' with Taiwan call

First time in decades

Trump's transition team said Friday that the President-elect had chatted with Tsai, who passed along her congratulations.

"During the discussion, they noted the close economic, political, and security ties (existing) between Taiwan and the United States. President-elect Trump also congratulated President Tsai on becoming President of Taiwan earlier this year."

The chat marks the first publicly reported call between a US President or President-elect and the leader of Taiwan since Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

It is perhaps the first major sign of the unpredictability that Trump has vowed to bring to long-held US relations with the rest of the world.

The call, first reported by the Financial Times, risks throwing US-China relations into a tailspin before Trump takes the oath of office January 20.
And it has prompted questions over whether Trump intends a shift in US policy, or if this was a blunder by a team with limited experience of international affairs.
Trump emphasized Friday night that Taipei initiated the call.

"The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you!" tweeted the President-elect.

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Here again not knowing the current NATO agreements with China Trump walked into a firestorm showing he needs more work in politics. Rattling the cage without knowing the ramifications can lead to some serious issues and reprocussions.

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Taiwan's President published a statement Friday night about the phone call on an official website, which she described as an "intimate and relaxed conversation" lasting 10 minutes.
The two also shared their views on important policy points, the statement said, according to a translation, "in particular, to promote the domestic economy and strengthen national defense, allowing the people better lives and a guarantee of security. The two briefly exchanged opinions on the situation in the Asia region."
Global Headaches: The 10 biggest issues facing Donald Trump;

Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on "AC360" that she wouldn't go beyond what the transition team statement said. But the President-elect was fully aware of the call's implications, Conway suggested.

"He either will disclose or not disclose the full contents of that conversation but he's well aware of what US policy has been," Conway said.

The Trump Organization is also denying reports that it is considering building luxury hotels in the Taiwanese city of Taoyuan after the city's mayor was quoted last month as saying a representative did visit.

The mayor Cheng Wen-tsan told local media the Trump representative did visit in September and that company was interested in developing there.

"There have been no authorized visits to Taiwan on behalf of Trump Hotels for the purposes of development nor are there any active conversations. Trump Organization is not planning any expansion into Taiwan," a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization Saturday told CNN.

The spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified by name, added that the Trump Organization employee who was there was not part of the development team and was not there for those reasons but for sales purposes for existing Trump hotels.

'No change'

By Friday night, China had already reached out to the Obama administration. White House officials declined to comment on diplomatic discussions.

Ned Price, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, said "there is no change to our longstanding policy on cross-Strait issues."

Insults fly when Trump, Clinton aides meet

"We remain firmly committed to our 'one China' policy based on the three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act," he said. "Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations."

A different Obama administration official said there was no contact with either the White House or State Department about the call beforehand.

Not being a politician and knowing the agreements and fully understanding them could result in unwanted misconceptions by other countries. Sanfus such as this could stoke the fires leading to an unwanted international incident - more homework is needed by Trump and his aides in the future.